Kyou Fujibayashi (藤林杏, Fujibayashi Kyō?) is a girl with a kind of deceptive personality. While she is quite harsh-mouthed, seems ignorant about other people's feelings(which is revealed in the visual novel to be nothing more than, in some sense, a steppingstone) and doesn't feel uneasy about threatening people to death(not seriously in most cases, yet she is capable of putting her threats to reality), she never has a bad intention towards anyone, is very communicative and can actually be kind, supportive and caring, which makes her a surprisingly good friend. She is very decisive and reliable, which makes her seem like an older sister to everyone. Combined with her almost manly behavior, it makes her more popular with girls than with guys, which Kyou is upset about. Kyou is a kind of person to never get bored with as she always has something to talk about and likes joking, sometimes kind of indecently. The older of the Fujibayashi twins, her younger sister is Ryou, her love for whom(as a sister) breaks the limits of one's imagination(and it's not only Ryou who she loves that much, which is implied in Kyou's route in the VN), from which comes her overprotectiveness of Ryou. Kyou and Ryou can be distinguished through their eye color; Kyou has purple eyes while her sister's are blue. Kyou also has longer hair than her sister and Kyou's hairpiece is on the left, while Ryou wears it to the right. She was Tomoya's class representative in their second year, and has maintained a steady friendship with Tomoya even though they are put in different classes on their third year, remaining one of the few female students who don't mind talking to him. She is the class representative of class 3-E in Clannad,though she doesn't take this responsibility too seriously and often violates the school rules. Unlike Ryou, Kyou is an excellent cook, her best course being pork cutlet. She has a pet baby boar named Botan who she also is very protective of and cares much about despite seeming not to do so. She owns a motorcycle, which is known only to Tomoya, Nagisa(only in the anime), and her sister. Strangely enough, she is seen complimenting Kotomi's build and enjoying hugging her(in Kotomi's route in the visual novel Kyou even does things like peeking at her underwear and saying "Got it, Kotomi? Say no and I'll fondle you everywhere~", which may have totally been a joke, yet has totally embarrassed Kotomi). She throws various types of books towards anyone she gets furious with, especially Yōhei Sunohara. Her strength is great to the point of supernaturality, with Tomoya once comparing it to Tomoyo's kicks. As if that wasn't enough, Kyou seems to be able to violate the laws of physics: not only she can throw a dictionary with exceptional force and precision, but she can also make it dig into the ground while hitting it almost tangentially(VN) or crack concrete(anime), both physically impossible. Also, she takes them seemingly out of nowhere: the best explanation for it is that she basically translocates the dictionaries into her hands. The fact that Kyou can ignore physical limitations can also explain her glowing eyes when she is angry and Botan's seven skills(four of which are shown in the VN, all of them are physically impossible for a regular baby boar, which Botan undoubtedly is. It's also implied in the VN that Botan's skills are a result of Kyou's influence).

Contents

Clannad(visual novel)

Fujibayashi twins' story

Twins' story begins with Tomoya gradually growing closer to the Fujibayashi twins. During that he learns about the particular qualities of Ryou's fortunes(to be exact, their results are always the opposite to what is going to happen) and the fact that Kyou is a heavy sleeper, gets hit by Kyou's bike multiple times, gets to know that Kyou is very popular among underclassman girls and soon enough comes to understand the reason of that: Kyou's manly behavior, confidence and yet a loving and caring character behind this tough facade sets up an image of her as that of an older sister to everyone.

During all this time Kyou was thinking on how to pair Ryou up with Tomoya. It's unknown when exactly did Ryou fall in love with Tomoya; it's implied that Kyou and Ryou fell for him at the same time which leads to conclusion that, most likely, it happened at the first year. Kyou knew about her sister's crush and despite having fallen for Tomoya as well, she decided to sacrifice her feelings for Ryou's sake as soon as younger sister asked for her help. So she comes up to Tomoya and uses his sense of pride to lure him into going to the courtyard to have lunch with Ryou, then to go home with her and, finally, to go to the courtyard and "return her feelings". The plan she developed is so perfect(at least, in Kyou's opinion) that she doesn't even bother hiding it from Tomoya. All this time Ryou is convinced that Tomoya shows her attention of his own volition. Yet when Tomoya agrees to start dating Ryou, he does so after rethinking it for himself and actually considering it worth trying.

Then comes the time when Kyou totally devotes herself to making both Ryou and Tomoya happy together. Knowing Tomoya and his tastes, Kyou tries to make Ryou bolder and more confident while teaching Tomoya how to be a good boyfriend. Being a heavy sleeper, she goes to the trouble of waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning to make lunches for them all. She even guides them on their first date, during which Tomoya notices that he just wouldn't know what to do if Kyou wasn't there. Kyou sets up a situation where Ryou would express her tastes about gemstones, but gets into her own trap as well and names her favourite gemstone simultaneously with Ryou. Then she makes sure Tomoya remembered what exactly does Ryou like. Later on she ran to buy a deck of tarot cards as Tomoya's gift for Ryou for their next date. Two days later Tomoya tries to taste Ryou's cooking for the first time and finds out that when she said she's a terrible cook, she meant it.

Before the long three-day holiday Tomoya and Ryou make an agreement about a date on the third day since Ryou has to go on a profession-related trip to another town. Tomoya comes to understand how happy can he be by just knowing someone needs him just because it's him. During the holiday Tomoya and Kyou go to the forest to walk Botan. There, Kyou tells Tomoya her story about how she found the baby boar trembling under the cold rain and felt too sorry for it to leave it there. Tomoya seems to be moved by that story and have finally found out how kind Kyou actually is. So he even agrees to Kyou's idea of a kiss practice(Kyou said it was just so Tomoya won't fail when doing so for real with Ryou). Having already started harboring feelings for Kyou, he awaits the actual kiss, but Kyou stops his face a millimeter away from hers(she has a sister she has to pair up with this guy, so she can't take him for herself).

Kyou's story

Tomoya decides to buy Ryou a gift himself and goes for the gemstone she wanted. But due to having already fallen for Kyou(yet not realizing it at the moment) he can't correctly remember what did Ryou want exactly and buys a pendant with Kyou's favourite gem instead. At the day of the date with Ryou Tomoya is lucky enough to accidentally leave the pendant at home. After receiving the results of the fortune from a machine, Tomoya and Ryou kiss for the first time.

Someone saw Tomoya and Kyou almost kissing in the forest, due to which corresponding rumors started to spread through the school. Kyou decided to avoid Tomoya and reject everything about them dating so the rumors would eventually die down and won't disturb Ryou; Kyou, on the other hand, would be able to always stay close to Tomoya, even if as a friend, again. Just to kill those rumors, Kyou even goes so far as to start dating Sunohara, which is seen by Tomoya. He was about to shout for her to stop, but Youhei successfully drove out of the situation himself by pointing out that Kyou isn't that confident in her feelings and actually loves Tomoya. The next day Kyou tells Tomoya that she doesn't see him in any special light and decided not to date Sunohara because it would be mean to him since Kyou has no feelings for him, which, as obvious, is only part true.

Kyou gradually returns to her regular self(at least, she seems so) while Ryou becomes bolder, practices cooking and so on; in other words, she tries to become as much like Kyou as possible for Tomoya. This leads the guy to self-hatred since his inertness to his feelings led him to a terrible situation: he knows how much Kyou is hurt seeing him with Ryou, but he doesn't want to hurt Ryou by breaking up with her since it's obvious how much Ryou loves him; Kyou will get mad at him as well. At this point he still hopes that doing nothing will somehow lead him out of this.

On a next date with Ryou he jokingly offers her to go "where no one will see them" and do corresponding things. Despite Ryou was taken by total surprise, she accepts Tomoya's offer before he tells her he's serious about her and means her no harm, so he doesn't want to hurry the events up. Tomoya notices he cannot clearly tell Ryou that he loves her.

Later Tomoya finds out that Kyou went from school early. He sees Botan through the window and deduces that Kyou is still somewhere on the school ground. Tomoya ignores the fact that lesson is still on and goes to find Kyou. She tries to escape, but ends up in his embrace. Kyou tells Tomoya about that both she and Ryou loved him, but Kyou was afraid to be rejected or to hurt Ryou's feelings if she was accepted, that's why she concealed her own for that long. She told that she secretly wished Ryou failure with Tomoya, but actually did everything so Ryou would succeed. Tomoya tries to tell Kyou about his feelings for her that he came to realize over the time, but Kyou cuts him off before he could and says that he has to care for Ryou only.

Ryou reads Tomoya's fortune with tarot cards and it turns out to be deadly accurate: Ryou was like she was actually reading her beloved's past, present and future, his thoughts and feelings. She already knew who did Tomoya love in fact(that's the exact reason she started to behave like Kyou of her own volition), so she covered those grim results up with a happy smile and a phrase "Everything will be OK for us". Next day, Sunohara clearly states to Tomoya that he won't be able to get out of his situation clean-handed: he will have to hurt someone by clearly deciding who does he love. The only choice given to Tomoya is who will he hurt. Tomoya privately asks Kyou about what will she do if he breaks up with Ryou. Kyou says she doesn't want Tomoya for herself if it needs someone else to cry.

It takes Tomoya a day to make up the resolve to voice out his decision. First he tries to tell Ryou they're breaking up, but fails; all he could do was reject her kiss; that was enough to make Ryou run away in tears. Later on a rugby club member comes to Sunohara's room and tells Tomoya that one of the twins was looking for him and that it seems she was the younger one. Tomoya runs around the school to find her, but only succeeds in the evening. He tells everything about his feelings to a short-haired girl with indefinite due to the sunset's tint eye color. The girl surprises Tomoya by turning out to be Kyou. She tells him that it's Ryou who told her not to give up and fight for her happiness until the very end. Tomoya finally gives Kyou the pendant he thought he bought for Ryou. Then Kyou and Tomoya kiss again.

After some time, Tomoya also meets Ryou in order to say sorry for everything he blamed himself for. Ryou asks him not to apologize, because in that case she would forgive him and that'll make her believe that all the happy memories they made are but a lie. Tomoya comes to understand that despite everything, it was time when they were happy, so there is a reason to be friends again.

Later, in the fall, Kyou tells Tomoya that she only cut her hair so she could hear for herself what he was going to say to Ryou. She also tells that Ryou has found a boyfriend(presumably Kappei). Kyou remembers what Tomoya said a few months before about his favorite hair length and promises him to grow her hair out again so he'd love her even more.

Clannad(anime adaptation)

Kyou is very protective of her younger sister, Ryou, throughout the entire series, and we first see her when she shoots a book at Tomoya thinking that he was bullying Ryou. She knows of her little sister's crush on Tomoya since junior year, so she tries her best to get them together and seperate Tomoya from any sort of romantic interest (like Kotomi and Nagisa), even though she is their friend and means them no harm. She helps Kotomi during her arc and supports her and Nagisa. However, while working so that Ryou and Tomoya become a couple, Kyou falls in love with Tomoya. This is proven in season one when Kyou sees Tomoya and Nagisa together. After Nagisa had been hit by a foul tennis ball, Tomoya helped her to the nurse's office. She looked at Ryou and tried to tell her that she was sorry and that she couldn't get Tomoya to fall in love with her, but Ryou stopped her and said, "Onee-chan...I'm so sorry..." Kyou then looked at her in shock and said, "Wh-What are you t-ta--" Kyou then stopped as she noticed tears welling up in her eyes. She tried to hold back the tears but she just started sobbing. The two sisters hugged and cried as they finally came to grips with reality that Tomoya is already in love with Nagisa.

Kyou becomes a member of the Drama Club, although she only signs up so the minimum number of members will be reached. She is athletic and doesn't get on too well with Tomoyo, whom she sees as a threat to her cause of getting Ryou together with Tomoya. Kyou also notices that she is strangely popular amongst underclassmen.

~After Story~

Kyou appears as a secondary character during most of Clannad ~After Story~. She plays in the baseball match at the beginning of the season, and attends Nagisa's mock graduation ceremony later on. She is also seen visiting Nagisa during her pregnancy. Later in ~After Story~, Kyou works as a kindergarten teacher, and coincidentally is also Ushio's teacher. According to Tomoya, her personality is still the same, even after the reunion, but Ushio says that Kyou is a good teacher. She misses Nagisa and is often reminded of her each time she sees Ushio.

Quotes

"Don't you think it's a shame to give up on something you've started, no matter what it is? It kind of feels like you lost to yourself, no?" – visual novel, common route, April 21st

Trivia

Kyou resembles Kagami Hiiragi from Lucky☆Star. The two characters have very similar personalities, are intelligent, and both have a twin sister.

Apart from that, Kyou resembles Yuiko Kurugaya from Key's next title after Clannad, Little Busters!. The resemblance lies in similar hairpieces in the left lock of hair, intellectual abilities(both characters have excellent intuition), the ability to violate the laws of physics and the character: both of the girls are easy interlocutors, both are seen as older sisters to surrounding people, both like jokes(and indecent ones as well), are fond of things they consider cute, like to do stuff they consider funny, both get fearsomely insane when someone makes them mad(yet Kurugaya gets mad way harder and recovers to her normal self faster) and they both show incredible amount of love towards those who are close to them. As if to top their similarity off, there is something like an easter egg between Clannad and LB!(yet it may be just a coincidence): in both VNs both heroines are first met by the protagonist on the same day of month(Kyou's first scene in Clannad takes place on 16th of April while Yuiko's first scene in LB! takes place on 16th of May).